1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to computer resource management systems and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for synchronizing a physical machine with a virtual machine while the virtual machine is operational.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical computing environment, small to large organizations produce a significant amount of mission critical data (e.g., financial information, trade secrets, legal documents, intellectual property, critical business strategies (e.g., marketing and/or production plans), source code, presentations and/or the like). These organizations may employ various computing technologies to protect and process the mission critical data such that various users may process such mission critical data with little or no interruption. For example, an employee may utilize a physical machine (e.g., a computer, such as a desktop, a laptop, a PDA and/or the like) to perform various tasks (e.g., billing, payroll and/or the like) and any data loss or interruption may result in downtime.
Physical machines, however, may become inoperable (e.g., system crash) due to various failures (e.g., a hardware failure, a software fault, an operating system failure and/or the like). These failures often cause disastrous errors and/or data loss. For example, a sudden computer crash may occur while a user is testing source code. As another example, the user may be demonstrating proprietary software to a potential customer or investor when the physical machine fails to boot and jeopardizes future business relations.
Various data recovery software programs may be utilized to restore a software and/or hardware configuration of the physical machine upon recovery after a failure. Unfortunately, these data recovery software programs require a significant amount of time to complete the restoration process. The user may also require an administrator to manually restore the physical machine. Even after the physical machine is restored, the user is required to reinstall applications and reconfigure hardware devices on the restored physical machine.
These data recovery software programs may configure a virtual machine to be a clone of the physical machine. Furthermore, the virtual machine may use the same computer data as the physical machine. As such, the user may operate the virtual machine in a manner similar to the physical machine. The virtual machine, unfortunately, must be powered off in order to recover the physical machine at a later point-in-time.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for synchronizing a physical machine with a virtual machine while the virtual machine is operational.